Petraeus: "I Don't Know" If my Iraq Policy Makes America Safer

The war supporters "savior," General David Petraeus doesn't know if the war in Iraq is making us safer (thanks to Randi Rhodes for picking up on this):

WARNER: I hope in the recesses of your heart that you know that strategy will continue the casualties, stress on our forces, stress on military families, stress on all Americans. Are you able to say at this time, if we continue what you have laid before the Congress, this strategy, that if you continue, you are making America safer?

PETRAEUS: Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objections in Iraq.

WARNER: Does that make America safer?

PETRAEUS: Sir, I don't know actually. I have not sat down and sorted out in my own mind.

GOI: Does this scare the shit out of anyone else?? This is the head of military forces in Iraq and he has no clue whether the war is making us safer? The lives of thousands, if not millions of people depend upon this guy and he doesn't know??? He has no better idea then someone like me who isn't there and is the furthest thing from a four-star general, a general who is very familiar with the fight. I guess at least he didn't give the "knee-jerk," propaganda answer of, "Yes. We are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them at home."

Never the less, it still worries me, greatly. So in other words it's a 50/50 situation for him and with that mind, how can we say anything is working in Iraq?? These young folks are dying and getting severely injured over there and their top general can't even say that their sacrifice is doing anything to make us or Iraq safer. Because, clearly if it's not making us safer it's definitely not making Iraq any safer, where they face the bombs, the bullets and the executions on a daily, sometimes hourly basis.

So "the surge" might have bought us a little time and space but not nearly close to being enough. It's like saying to someone who is slowly and painfully dying with cancer that, "Well, the good news is that we've bought you some more time but the bad news is that your immune system isn't capable of doing anything with it." "The surge," has bought us time, but it isn't much time and the Iraqi government has already wasted most of that time and isn't capable of doing what is necessary in the little time remaining (pulling the country together and disarming the militias amongst a long list of other things).

Meanwhile the good general's boss, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon doesn't have much good to say about Patraeus, "Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chickenshit" and added, "I hate people like that", the sources say." The story quoted a senior official as saying that referring to "bad relations" between them is "the understatement of the century".

The CENTCOM commander believed the United States should be withdrawing troops from Iraq urgently, largely because he saw greater dangers elsewhere in the region. "He is very focused on Pakistan," said a source familiar with Fallon's thinking, "and trying to maintain a difficult status quo with Iran." Fallon had a "visceral distaste" for what he regarded as Petraeus's sycophantic behaviour in general, which had deeper institutional roots, according to a military source familiar with his thinking.

GOI: It seems to me that Bush is using Petraeus to continue to try and sell this war as no one listens to dubya anymore. Petraeus seems like a puppet created out of cloth. A brown-nosing, ass kisser is just what Bush likes. And amidst all of this, President "Kicking Ass" is going to speak tonight from Candyland, er, the White House and say, blah, blah, surge, blah, blah, Patraeus, blah, blah, "long war, blah, blah.

Gee, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

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